Little J has always been an amazing eater. He likes almost everything we give him. I think one of the reasons he eats so well is that I give him a wide variety of foods. A few weeks ago I was searching on Pinterest for toddler meal ideas, and most of what came up were complicated recipes or clean eating things.

Let’s get real. I am fine serving my son frozen chicken nuggets. If he has some high fructose corn syrup, he’s going to be fine. And I think that most moms are probably with me! So I wanted to share some easy (and real) toddler meal ideas, straight from Little J’s menu, in the hopes that it gives other real moms helpful ideas for more things to feed their toddlers.

I try and give Little J a variety of food groups at each meal. The important ones are proteins, dairy, fruits, and veggies. It’s easy to get carbs and fat in the diet, but you have to consciously decide to give them the other ones. It’s really helpful to have the little plates with the dividers on them. That way you have to have more than just one thing!

So that being said, here are ideas for each meal and snacks!

Breakfast Toddler Meals

Breakfast is easily Little J’s best meal. He always eats a huge breakfast, which is nice because he starts his day off on a good note. He almost always asks for more of whatever I give him. I usually give him a few suggestions for breakfast and then he tells me what he wants. If your toddler can do this, then it’s a great way to give him some independence. For breakfast I usually give Little J milk, one fruit, and a main dish. Some days he gets two different things because he loves breakfast that much and will easily eat it all. Here are some of the things he loves:

Dinner Toddler Meals

For dinner, he almost always gets what we are having. Sometimes if it’s something like soup he has something else because he’s not quite good enough with a spoon. But usually, he gets whatever we are having, plus milk, a fruit, and a veggie. I’m not going to make a list of dinner ideas because we eat a lot of things!

Fruits and Veggies

One thing that I like to do is give Little J drained fruit cups from the store. It’s super easy to serve him those, and it takes ten seconds of preparation.

For veggies, I use either a steamed veggie, or I microwave a cup of frozen vegetables. Again, super easy and it takes a minute to heat them up. If you need some more ideas on how to get your toddler to eat more veggies, check out this post.

Here are some of his favorite fruits and veggies (also, I know he doesn’t like a ton of veggies yet, but we’re hopeful he’ll like broccoli and green beans one day!):

Fruits

Apples

Bananas

Oranges

Strawberries

Blueberries

Bananas

Pears

Peaches

Pineapple

Grapes

Watermelon

Cantaloupe

Raspberries

Veggies

Corn

Carrots

Sweet potatoes

Mixed veggies (frozen and warmed in the microwave)

Peas

Cucumbers

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Green beans

Okay, so I know you must be thinking, those all sound great, but that’s impossible to do for every meal!

Yes, it is hard. And that’s okay. Not every meal is going to be perfect and have a fruit and a veggie. Sometimes your toddler is going to be the worst and decide he suddenly hates everything on his plate. And in those cases, we usually just leave his plate out (or put it in the fridge) and when he gets hungry, we offer it to him again. I don’t want Little J to become a picky eater, so if he doesn’t eat what is on his plate, he doesn’t get a different meal. And that usually works. Sometimes he’s just not hungry when we eat and he will eat later. But most of the time, he is a great eater.

Snack Ideas

One last thing. Let’s talk about snacks. Little J loves snacks. We usually give him a little of something in one of his bowls and he will eat it while he plays. That kid loves snacks. Here are some of what we give him:

Okay I think that about covers it! We also love using plates that separate each food because it kind of motivates me to fill each thing (usually with a main dish, fruit, and veggie). I hope that is helpful! Like I said, not every meal is going to be perfect, and that’s okay. Just keep trying new things, because even if your toddler hates chicken one day, he could love it a few days later. Toddlers are crazy like that. So good luck in your feeding adventure, and I hope some of these toddler meal ideas have inspired you!

Thanks for the tips! I struggle with always offering the same foods to my picky toddler. He refuses to eat meat which makes life really interesting. I'm pretty sure he would live off of goldfish if I let him!

Hi Chelsea, I saw this on Pinterest and enjoyed reading it. I feed my 27 month old almost exactly the same way (target protein, veg, and fruit at meals). Your description of your son sounds so much like mine! The only big difference I could see is that mine loves dips. He usually gets to choose just one dip at lunch and dinner. Right now his fave is hummus on EVERYTHING (and by the spoonful), but he also loves to dip his raw veggies into ranch, bbq sauce, mustard, or ketchup. I have tiny little dipping cups that are perfect for this. He eats raw sweet bell peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, celery, carrots, and cherry toms this way. I just cut/peel them so they are easy and safe for him to bite. Hope that idea helps you or other readers get more veggies into the littles. 🙂

Tiny dipping cups would be a great idea! I just wrote a post about ways to get your toddler to eat more veggies, and dipping was one of them! I’ve never tried anything other than ranch though. I might have to check those out!

Thanks for the great ideas! I’ll have to reference these once my little guy is big enough. I love how you always do a veggie and a fruit. That makes it easy to keep track of if they’re eating enough healthy foods.

I just have to say that this is THE best, most relevant, most useful, most realistic post about toddler feeding that I have ever seen. Thank you so much! Hopefully this will help me get my daughter interested in eating more that her current faves. Again, thank you!

Great ideas! And what I love is they’re practical. I’m all about being healthy and doing what’s best for my 14mo, but when they’re so picky it’s hard. If it were up to my son he’d live on grilled cheese

I know you mention breakfast lunch & dinner in your real toddler food web page, but did not give any dinner ideas? Every parent says their kid eats whatever they are having, but never state what “they are actually having?” can you give ideas and share what you have for dinner? Thanks!

We have about 30 meals on rotation, so it’s kind of hard to give you an idea of what we have for dinner. Things like different pasta dishes, enchiladas, burritos, tacos, soups, chili, sandwiches, casseroles, that kind of thing. You can check out my Lunch and Dinner Pinterest board for more ideas!

I love this list!! So helpful. My son loves hummus too! I am having a hard time with meat though. He usually will chew it a a little bit then spit it out. Deli roast beef is the only thing I know he will eat. Any tips on getting more meat into my 18 month old?

Such a helpful post. Thank you! It’s so hard being a mom today with all the guilt for giving our toddlers basic meals that aren’t completely natural. It’s a lot planning with also working. I’m going to try giving him more frozen veggies that I can heat up like you suggested.